9/11/01 Tragedy, TV, Airplanes, and a Song

This blog is about my personal experiences related to September 11, 2001. It includes my perspective of the tragedy, my job at a TV station that was carrying coverage of the day, how it affected my role in aviation, and my part in a song dedicated to the heroes of 9/11.

It started for me a little after 9:00 that morning. I was driving to the local grocery store when I had WCMF radio on in the car. I heard them discussing a plane that had crashed into the World Trade Center. While it was obviously a horrific situation, my mind transported back to the 1940's when a military airplane crashed into the side of the Empire State Building. At that time, it punched a hole in the side of the building and rained some debris onto the sidewalk below. I did not even begin to imagine what this new event was creating. By the time I got to the grocery store, I had heard that the FAA was shutting down airspace around New York City. Still not comprehending the magnitude of what was happening, I started thinking about how this was going to affect flights across the country with cancellations and delays.

I continued with my shopping trip, all the while thinking about Air Traffic Control, the airspace, and airline flights. Obviously I was naive to what was really happening.

Once I got my groceries back out to the car, started the engine, and turned the radio back on, that's when I heard that another plane had crashed into the Pentagon, and still yet another plane had crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. That's when I really became aware of what a horrible situation was developing.

Back in my house, I left the groceries in the car and ran in to turn on the TV. I was shocked at the amount of smoke I saw around the south end of Manhattan Island. There was so much smoke that I didn't even  recognize that one of the buildings had collapsed already. As I was watching, the phone rang. It was my mother. She asked me if I had seen the plane hit the building. I told her I did not. As we were talking, I kept my eye on the TV screen. Suddenly I saw the second tower collapse. My mother was also watching the TV and she saw it too. I was shocked at what was going on.

I am a licensed private pilot. At that time, I was the president of the Rochester Pilots Association. I don't remember who it was, put a reporter from a newspaper called me to ask me my opinion about airspace being shut down. I didn't know what to say. I told him that I was just learning of all of the events and didn't know what else to tell him. I still don't know who it was and if they used any of my comments in their story.

I continued watching TV coverage, and somewhere along the way I managed to get the rest of the groceries into the house. At that time, I worked in the control room of WHEC TV 10. I was scheduled to work at 3:00 that afternoon.

Once at work, I was asked to take over in master control and I sat there for the next nine hours straight until it was time for me to go home. My job was to keep coverage of the NBC television network on the air, write up all of the programs and commercials that we were missing, and do local special reports whenever the newsroom wanted them aired.

One of the notifications that we received from the NBC television network was, since nobody knew at that time who was behind these hijackings and attacks, NBC did not know if they would get knocked off the air. They advised all of their affiliate TV stations to be prepared to go to local programming if the NBC television network lost its signal or worse. We had videotapes of our regularly scheduled programs running on the tape machines, so we were ready to cut to regularly scheduled programming if needed. Otherwise, we continued with coverage.

A program log at a TV or a radio station is a pre-printed schedule of programs, commercials, and other content that is scheduled to go on the air. It is a master control operator's job to air these items and to write down the times that they aired. I took pictures of the program log that channel 10 had that day, and you can see some of the pages. The first one shows when the special report began, at 9:00, airing coverage of "world trade center fire." The second one shows when I signed on for duty at 3:00 PM. The third picture shows that we cut away from NBC coverage around 6:00 PM for a local news update. Otherwise, you can see some of the programs and commercials that were pre-empted at those times.

After nine hours of broadcasting repeated replays of planes crashing into buildings, and buildings collapsing, I went home and had images of buildings collapsing in my head as I was trying to get to sleep. It was not easy. I truly wondered what was happening to the United States.

At work, nearly nonstop coverage of the 9/11 events continued for the next few days and frequent coverage into the next few weeks.

The other role I had in my life at the time was that I was president of the Rochester Pilots Association. All flights in the United States were grounded for a couple of weeks until the government assessed the threat of further attacks by air. A reporter from R News in Rochester called me up and asked if we could do a story about small planes, like the kind I flew, being grounded. I met her and a news photographer at Ledgedale Airport in Brockport and here's the story.

https://www.facebook.com/paul.pakusch/videos/467714888091/

The following month, my good friend Tony Weschler called me up and asked me if I would play drums on a song that he was recording as a tribute to the heroes of 9/11. So I did. We recorded it with Eileen Alexander singing lead and Scott Meli playing guitar. The four of us enjoyed working together so much on this song that we decided to form a permanent band, which was named Intrigued, and stayed together until 2009. This was the silver lining on a horrible tragedy. It brought me out of retirement from playing drums and I have been playing drums ever since. Here is the song.

https://youtu.be/zL0GrZ0YoIY

Aviation Roots in Western New York

I wrote this in 2003 and it was published in the Wolfe Newspapers. 

The world will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of powered flight on December 17. It was on that date in 1903 that Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully flew their aircraft in Kitty Hawk, NC. Western New York is rich in aviation history.

During this centennial year, it's worth noting some aviation achievements that have significant Rochester connections. Among them, the first woman to become a pilot and the roots of a major aircraft manufacturer. Blanche Stuart Scott was born in Rochester and died here after an illustrious life. She was the first and only woman to be trained by famed aviator Glenn Curtiss and the first woman to solo an aircraft. The 1910 flight was made in Hammondsport, NY, near Keuka Lake in a 35-horsepower Curtiss Pusher.

Curtiss himself was a major contributor to the early days of aviation, including setting records and designing airplanes, among them the Curtiss Jenny, America's most famous World War I airplane. Blanche went on to become the first female test pilot and the first woman to ride in a jet in 1948 with Chuck Yeager piloting. Her career reached into other areas including local radio stations, major  studios in California, and writing. She died at Genesee Hospital in 1970.

Many people generically refer to small airplanes as "Piper Cubs", an inaccurate term for the thousands of different kinds of airplanes that fly the skies. The real Piper J-2 Cub is best-known as a little two-seat yellow plane whose economical costs made it popular for several generations of student pilots, including thousands of World War ll pilots. it helped develop Piper Aircraft into a leading aircraft manufacturer.

The forerunner of its design came from a small shop at Allen and Fitzhugh streets known as the Taylor Brothers Aircraft Corporation. Brothers Clarence Gilbert and Gordon Taylor came up with early versions of an aircraft known as the "Chummy" in the late 1920's. Gordon was killed during a demonstration flight, but "C.G." refined the design and attracted the attention of some businessmen from Bradford, PA, when he needed larger facilities and more cash. The financial deal worked out with them required that the company move to Bradford. When the Wall Street crash of 1929 brought the company to bankruptcy, oilman William T. Piper bought the assets.

Taylor and Piper led the efforts to design an inexpensive airplane marketed to flight schools. The final design was wildly popular and the J-3 Cub became one of the most well-known airplanes in aviation history. A replica of the Chummy was built a few years ago by local flying enthusiasts and now hangs in the lobby at the Rochester Airport. Those enthusiasts are members of Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 44 and the Geriatric Pilots Association.

Rochester will have another connection to the 100th anniversary of powered flight on December 17, 2003 in Kitty Hawk. On that date, Dr. Kevin Kochersberger, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the Rochester institute of Technology and a 1,400-hour pilot, will be one of the two pilots selected to pilot a replica of the Wright Flyer.

First Solo - August 1990

This was written by me in August of 1990

On the morning my instructor, Bob, and I were scheduled for another round of touch and goes, I noticed that the air was very calm. The forecast did not show much change for the rest of the day.

Believing that my first solo would happen on this day, I prepared myself by wearing a sacrificial shirt.

Bob and I took off. The air was as smooth as glass! Just a slight bump or two at 500 feet AGL. This would be my first lesson in two weeks that did not have convective air currents feeding cumulus clouds overhead.

Making the turn to crosswind, I became convinced that the solo flight would happen at the end of this flight. My confidence was soaring at the thought of it.

I turned downwind, got clearance to touch and go, and went through the landing checklist. Bob wasn't saying anything, which I took as a good sign.

Turning to base leg and then final, I lined up with the runway centerline. Absolutely no wind correction needed! I was thrilled! What a perfect day for a first solo flight!

I greased my first landing and went around the pattern again to grease my second landing, all the while glancing expectantly at Bob. As I climbed through the little bump at 500 feet for the third time, Bob turned to me and said, "Do you feel ready?"

"Sure!"

"OK, then make the next one full stop."

Finally!

I don't know if it was overconfidence or too much excitement, but I managed to bounce a bit on the third landing.

Bob gave me final words of encouragement along with the advice to go around if I had any doubts about a landing. After endorsing my medical for solo flight, he wished me well and unplugged his headset. He left it on the seat next to me. I suppose that's how he was with me in spirit.

I called clearance and told them I would be doing two touch and goes followed by a full stop, and that this would be a first solo.

"Understand request. Contact ground when you're ready," he said.

I went through the checklist, started the engine, and contacted ground for taxi.

All the way to the runway, my exhilaration was interrupted by occasional moments of, "What the hell am I doing here?" It's something I had often asked myself when climbing into an airplane, but this morning just talking out loud seemed to have a soothing effect. I had this weird image of the microphone switch being stuck open and that everyone could hear my comments.

I stopped short of the runway to do the run-up, again reading the checklist out loud. When I finished the run-up, I glanced at the headset in the seat beside me and then scanned outside around the airfield.

Talk about feeling lonely! Rochester airport usually had something going on but I could detect no movement other than my own. Even the radio was quiet.

I broke the silence and got permission to take off. I taxied out to the runway centerline and advanced the throttle to full power. I let out a war whoop! Now I really hoped that the microphone wasn't stuck open!

At 56 knots, I gently tugged at the yoke and the Beech Skipper lifted off the ground. Without Bob on board, the plane leaped for the sky. Amazing what this Skipper could do! At 500 feet AGL, there it was again: Bump!

I turned crosswind, then downwind. The tower game me clearance for the first touch and go and I went through the landing checklist. I turned base, then final. There in front of me, not moving left or right, was the familiar sight of runway 25. I thought, "This ought to be a piece of cake!"

It was! I set the plane down on the runway as if I had set a glass on the table. With the flaps up and the carb heat on cold again, I throttled to full power for round number two. At 56 knots, I lifted the plane up again and let out another war whoop.

My old visions of ending up on the 6:00 news had vanished and I felt the utmost confidence in my ability to complete this first solo flight and continue my flight training successfully.

I wasn't feeling so lonely anymore. Tower advised me to watch for another aircraft that was on final. And were they watching this poor soul making his first solo flight? I thought I could make out three figures in the tower that seemed to be leaning towards the window in my direction.

I knew Bob was watching and listening with his hand-held radio, but how many other instructors from the flight school were also watching? Maybe it was stage fright or self-conciousness, but my second and third landings were progressively worse. They weren't bad; just not as good as the first one.

I was only being critical of myself. The whole solo flight was over in 15 minutes.

I taxied back to the flight school and saw Bob waiting by the tie-down spot. I pulled up next to him and before I had the plane completely shut down, he had the door open and was offering his congratulations with a handshake.

Yes, there had been other instructors watching with him, and they all offered congratulations. Asked by several how it was, I could only grin and say, "Too short!"

Bob took out the ceremonial scissors and snipped the tail from my T-shirt. There wasn't much to review about this lesson. All I had left to do was pay for it and schedule my next lesson. After calling my wife and my mother, I headed out.

Having soared like a lone eagle for the first time, it seemed rather anti-climactic to walk out to my car with a hole in my shift and drive to work that day.